Ambalat, where the game nations play

Bantarto Bandoro, Jakarta

The row between Indonesia and Malaysia over Ambalat has dragged the military as well as diplomats from both sides into a kind of a game where both are committed to defend their strategic stakes. This is the second time that the two countries have been involved in a high profile conflict, the first was during the konfrontasi era in the 1960s.

Indonesia has sent seven navy frogmen to a small reef that neighboring Malaysia has also claimed as its territory ( The Jakarta Post On Line, March 14). For Indonesia, the deployment of its naval force is perhaps meant to prevent unwanted action on the part of Malaysia. The deployment, however, is in itself inadequate as a substitute for more fundamental policies and action: diplomacy.

Thus, what we are witnessing at the moment is a situation that can trigger military escalation. In such a situation, the military forces were in fact used for at least demonstration purposes. In some situations, such as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, actual combat was averted. In other situation, however, the crises developed into full-fledged war. The 1982 conflict between Argentina and Britain over the Malvina or Falkland Islands provide an example of a crisis escalating into armed hostility.

Are we about to witness a war between Indonesia and Malaysia? We are anxious to see what will eventually happen in the Ambalat area. We are also particularly curious about how the two governments would approach problem.

There are three alternatives the two sides can take to resolve the dispute.

The first approach is known as the event-interaction approach. It focuses on the exchange of action between the states involved in a crisis.

The current Ambalat conflict started when Malaysia granted an oil concession to foreign oil company, an action that prompted Jakarta's strong diplomatic protest. As the situation developed, we see is it both a real prelude to war and an approach to avert war. By focusing on the flow of interaction between Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, one can determine patterns that lead to the escalation or deescalation of conflict.

The second way of analyzing the Ambalat crisis is known as the decision-making approach, which stresses the importance of the perception and the manner in which the decision-makers perception can affect the selection of policies. In this regard, the situation in Ambalat is a special kind of situation for the decision makers in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. It is different from a normal situations as the official's perceive a high degree of foreign threat and a feeling of urgency about the situation. In such a situation, the decision makers from both sides may be apt to make less rational or more belligerent decisions.

The third approach is called the mediated stimulus-response approach, a combination of the first and second approach. In this context, the foreign policy of Indonesia and Malaysia can be viewed as cycles of stimuli and responses. The granting by Malaysia of an oil concession, believed to be within Indonesian national territory, to a foreign oil company, presented a stimulus to Jakarta's officials, who then responded by deploying military forces in the Ambalat and sending a diplomatic protest.

The Jakarta's action, in turn, presented a stimulus to the Malaysian leaders to halt temporarily oil exploration and announce its intention to solve the problem by way of diplomacy as well intensifying their sea control. Here we see that the actions of the governments in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were shaped -- or mediated -- by their respective decision making process.

The conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia over Ambalat is rooted in rivalry. At the regional level, there are instances which reflect how both Indonesia and Malaysia are competing for leadership. Both have a strong sense of being a great country, particularly during the Soeharto and Mahathir leadership, the two leaders played an important role in the stability and security of the region.

As stated above, Indonesia and Malaysia have already become involved in a game in Ambalat and consequently both have their own strategies to win the game. From the Indonesian side, the deployment of not so huge military forces is at least an indication of its intention to deter any further actions by Malaysia.

We can imagine also Indonesia and Malaysia in a kind of an escalation ladder. The leaders in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have to realize that their relations over the Ambalat issue are just like what Anatol Rapoport (1966) called a chicken game, with leaders in both countries on a ladder of escalation and each knowing that the other leader was thinking in the same way. The nature of the Ambalat crisis, can be understood best by seeing Indonesia and Malaysian as trying to manipulate, or dominate, the ladder of escalation.

The key concept here is "escalation dominance", by which both countries are able to control the crisis at any given rung on the ladder. Examples of escalation dominance would include the dominant sides (either Malaysia or Indonesia) having sufficient force advantage at a given rung of the ladder, meaning that it would lose least from any movement further up the ladder.

If both Indonesia and Malaysia are seen to be really involved in a chicken type game, then there is no such thing as stable cooperative equilibrium, because the best strategy against a "chicken" is to play for a victory, and the best general strategy is to issue threats so that the other will play "chicken". Yet, since Malaysia or Indonesia may not believe that either of them would carry out a threat of annihilation, the threats will be ignored with mutually disastrous results.

This is actually the scenario that both leaders in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have to avoid. Cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia is still possible in such a crisis, if the leaders of the respective countries have sufficiently opportunity to meet again in the future, so that they have a stake in their future interaction.

Unrestrained rivalry between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, however, should not prevent both sides from taking the following steps: Prevent the breakdown of communication; avoid the tendency to misperceive the action and intention of one's adversaries, especially the tendency to exaggerate their hostility; and manage the momentum of events.

By implication, more sound policies, greater self-control and more effective policy management can help to prevent or contain the conflict.

Although national leaders from Indonesia and Malaysia may at one time, but hopefully not, be misguided in their policies, they are not necessarily aggressive. They generally do not plan to launch war on the basis of a cold-blooded calculation. Rather, they blunder into war because they lose control of the situation.

The writer (bandoro@csis.or.id) is Editor of The Indonesian Quarterly of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a lecturer at the International Relations Post Graduate Studies Program, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia, Jakarta